Plain English Awards!!

[Cetti]

I heard this on the radio - Like to make a guess as to what this means in plain English: 'Installing a component into a structural fabric?'

[parkhead]

building a wall, laying bricks I think

[boognish76]

Sewing on a button?

[Cetti]

Yes, it's building a wall - neither can beat Richard Gere's "I am a giraffe..........speech!!!!!

[geofbob]

Sorry, but I thought Richard Gere's "giraffe/snake" statement quite clear, if a little unconventional. People are condemned for using too many clich�s; and then apparently they are to be ridiculed for being original.

[Joshua_R]

Putting up a shelf?

[boognish76]

I too thought the giraffe/snake thing was quite self-evident. And I could never see what all the fuss was about the Cantona seagull statement - okay, maybe it didn't have a lot to do with the question he was asked but as a statement in itself it made sense.

[rja211077]

The Cantona thing...of course it made sense, it's just the way he said it, and the fact that you don't expect that sort of thing to come from the mouth of a footballer!

[Napoleon]

What "Cantona seagull statement"?

[JohnPPotts]

I think it was "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they expect to be thrown a sardine." Actually quite plain - hacks followed him around because they wanted a story (but I have no idea what the actual question he was supposed to be answering was!)

[Cathy]

So what's this Richard Gere thing, then?

[Cetti]

I know who I am. No one else knows who I am," he said. "If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe." The prize was given by the Plain English Campaign as part of its drive to get public figures and organisations to write and communicate clearly.